US wants China to follow Indian developmental efforts in Afghanistan

Washington: The United States on Thursday urged China to follow the Indian model of engagement and developmental efforts in Afghanistan.

"India has played a constructive role over the last several years inside Afghanistan, and we would look to other nations like China to do the same," State Department Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

India has so far given financial assistance worth more than USD 2 billion to Afghanistan and has been involved in massive developmental efforts in this war-torn country.

"We want Afghanistan to be a good neighbour in the region. And they have many neighbours, and China and India are some of them," he said in response to a question.

"I think everybody in the international community could benefit from an Afghanistan that is secure and stable and prosperous. Our message to the other partners is the same as it's always been, which is we want to make sure that we're all pulling on the same oars here to get Afghanistan to that better future," Kirby said.

He said, "What we want to see and what we've been working toward for going on 15 years now, or close to it, is an Afghanistan that is secure and stable, a good neighbour in the region, and prosperous. And that remains the goal."

"But the way that gets done is by healthy, strong institutions inside Afghanistan to include security forces, which is of course the focus of the Resolute Support mission. Right now help Afghan National Security Forces continue their leadership of the security mission inside Afghanistan," he said.

"Nobody's under any illusion of how difficult that's going to be. President (Ashraf) Ghani, back to institution building, has been working very hard at this to try to strengthen Afghan institutions from just such an end, and we are contributing to the NATO mission that's designed to help Afghan National Security Forces continue to advance," he said.

"I am not minimising at all our condemnation of the continued attacks that we've been seeing, certainly in the last week or so. You ought to be mindful that just this week, you know, Resolute Support two, resolute service members two more were killed. Two more," he said.